Cody Read online

  Cody

  Book Three in the Dallas Billionaires Trilogy

  By Kirsten Osbourne

  Copyright 2012 Kirsten Osbourne

  Cover Design by Shaina Richmond of Gossamer Publishing

  Smashwords Edition

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  Book Three in the Dallas Billionaires Trilogy. After being rear-ended by a beautiful woman on his way home from the Super Bowl, Cody realizes he’s found the only woman in the world who is just right for him. How could he possibly have fallen for the only woman in the world so independent that his billions are a liability?

  Chapter 1

  Cody reached down and fiddled with the radio while he was stopped at the traffic light. He was on his way home from watching the Super Bowl with his two best friends and business partners, Steven and Justin. Flipping through the country stations, he finally settled on “Beer for my Horses” by Toby Keith. He grinned. He wasn’t much of a horse guy, but the song always made him laugh.

  He glanced up and saw the light was green, and just as he stepped on the gas he was forced forward in his seat from the impact of the vehicle behind him. Happy he was wearing his seat belt, he took stock for a moment, making sure he was okay. Trucks were easily replaced. Despite his billions, he drove a Ford F-350 and would until the day he died or they finally quit making the things. A country boy was just as good as his pick-up truck.

  He opened the door and strode the few feet back to see a beat up blue pick-up with a pretty brunette behind the wheel. He opened the door to the truck not able to take his eyes off her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded shakily. “I’ve never rear-ended anyone before. I’m so sorry!” She reached into her glove box and pulled out her insurance information to give him.

  “I don’t need that. We’ll just keep this off the record Miss?”

  “Cassidy. Amber Cassidy.” She stared into his dark eyes, unable to calm her shaking enough to get out of the car. How had she been so stupid? She knew her brakes were causing her problems and she’d planned to fix them, but she had decided to wait just one more month. The wreck was her fault and she knew it.

  “What do you do, Miss Cassidy?” Cody could see how shaken up the woman was, so he tried to talk to her about normal things to give her a chance to calm down.

  Her eyebrows drew together as she wondered what that had to do with anything. “It’s Amber. I’m a riding instructor at the Galloping Horse Ranch.” She didn’t mention she owned it, but in a few months she’d pay off the last mortgage, and she would finally have gotten back everything her father had lost with his gambling debts.

  “You sure you’re okay? Do you need some help?” He held out his hand to help her to her feet.

  She ignored his hand and shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I’m just a little shaky.” She took deep breaths trying to calm her racing heart. What would he say when he found out she knew her brakes were bad, and she’d tried to put off fixing them?

  He nodded and walked around to the front of her vehicle to assess the damage. The back end of his truck was dented pretty badly, but her entire front end was crushed in. “Will it start?”

  She pressed down the clutch and turned the key. Nothing happened. “Doesn’t look like it.” She shook her head and picked up her cell phone. “I guess I’d better call a tow truck.” She sighed. How much would this take out of the budget? More than the brake job would have she was certain.

  Cody grabbed the phone from her hand. “I’ll take care of the tow.” He tucked her phone into his pocket to keep her from calling anyone.

  She gave him a blank look. “I just rear-ended you. Aren’t you supposed to be yelling at me or something? Why are you being so nice?” What was wrong with this guy? Her negligence had just damaged his property and he acted as if it was his fault.

  He shrugged. “I guess I’m just a nice guy.” He grabbed his wallet, looked at a card, pulled out his own cell phone, and punched in a number. “I need a tow truck.” He gave their location and quickly pushed the end button putting his phone back into his pocket. “Where do you want it towed to?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed heavily worried about the cost of the repairs. “Do you know of a good body shop?” A cheap body shop who did decent work was what she meant, but she didn’t want to come right out and say it.

  He raised an eyebrow. “It’s going to cost a lot more to have it repaired than it would to just replace it. Let me buy you a new one and dinner.” He’d never actually offered to buy a woman a truck along with dinner before, but she was incredible, and he needed to make an impression. Of course, if she accepted he’d do it and walk away never looking back. He’d been used for his money too many times in the past to willfully walk into that situation again.

  She shook her head and stared at him in disbelief. “Let me get this straight. I rear-ended you, messed up your truck, and you want to buy me a truck?” She needed to go to the doctor and get her ears checked.

  “Why not?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be yelling at me for not paying attention to the road or being an idiot or something?” What was with this guy? Of course, this was much better than getting yelled at. Probably.

  “Would that make you like me better? Would you go out with me if I yelled at you?” A little boy smile transformed his face.

  She stared at him for a moment trying to figure out what was wrong with the man. “You want to know if yelling at me will make me go out with you?” She looked around wondering when the men he’d escaped from would take him back to the asylum. “Do you have some medication you’re supposed to take?”

  He reached out and stroked her cheek. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Can I buy you dinner? A truck? An engagement ring?”

  She took a deep breath, not sure how to respond. “Is there someone who takes care of you? Someone I can call?”

  He laughed out loud. “I promise, my mind is as sound as yours.” He shrugged. “I just tend to go after what I want, and I want you.” He reached out and took her hand in his. “Let me drive you home and I’ll take you to dinner on the way.” He’d just eaten with his friends, but he didn’t care. He’d sit and watch her eat if it gave him more time with her.

  She eyed him skeptically. “Do you even have a driver’s license?”

  He reached into his pocket pulled out his wallet took out his license and handed it to her. “The State of Texas seems to think I’m capable of driving.”

  She looked at his license, noting that he was thirty. The image was definitely him, and as she read his name she wondered why it seemed so familiar. She shrugged and handed the card back to him. “Okay, so you have a license.”

  “So can I drive you home and take you to dinner?” His big brown eyes pled with her, reminding her of a puppy dog.

  She glanced at the time on the dash of her truck. “It’s after ten. I ate a long time ago.”

  “Dessert then?”

  She sighed. Maybe if she agreed, he’d realize she was just a boring woman who worked too much. “Fine. You can drive me home and buy me a dessert somewhere. Is there anything even open at this time on a Sunday night?”

  He shrugged. “We can hit an Applebees. They’re all open until two now.” He wanted to take her somewhere nicer, but he that would have to wait until another day.

  The tow truck drove up and he walked over to deal with the man. “Thanks for c
oming so fast.”

  The man nodded. “Anything for you, sir. Where do you want it towed to?”

  Cody lowered his voice so Amber wouldn’t hear. “Tow it to an easily bribed mechanic. I’m going to buy her a new truck, whether she wants it or not. I need someone who will agree with me that this one is totaled.” He slipped the man a bill as he shook his hand. “Call me with where you tow it to. I’ll deal with her.”

  “Anything you say.” The tow truck driver transferred the hundred dollar bill into his pocket and hooked up the tow truck.

  “Bill this to my credit card,” Cody told the man while Amber protested. He turned to her. “You wouldn’t have hit anyone if I hadn’t been there, so in a way, it’s my fault.” He knew his reasoning was flawed, but judging by the age of her truck, she really didn’t have a lot of money to waste on a tow.

  She shook her head. “I can’t let you pay for my tow when I rear ended you! That’s crazy!” Where did this guy come from?

  He shrugged and took her arm, guiding her to the passenger side of his truck. After starting the truck, he looked at her. “Where do you live?”

  “I live on a ranch outside Corral City. Thirty-five north.”

  “Is that up near Denton?”

  “Yeah. Not far from there.” She paused. “Why don’t you just drive me home? You don’t need to buy me a dessert.”

  He reached over and took her hand in his as he drove toward Hwy. 114. “I want to. I can either take you to Applebees up in Denton or there’s a Waffle House in Roanoke we can eat at on our way to I-35.”

  “Does Waffle House even serve desserts?” She secretly loved Waffle House, because you never knew who was going to show up there. There were always crazy people, and the waitresses never seemed to have a filter telling them what they shouldn’t say to a customer. It was a fun place to eat. Her parents would have rolled over in their graves if they knew, though. They thought Waffle House was too common for their family.

  He nodded. “They have this triple chocolate pie that’s to die for. I don’t know if you like chocolate, but if you don’t, you’ll have to get out of my truck and walk home.”

  She laughed. “I’m female. I’m human. Therefore, I love chocolate.” She thought about it for a minute. “Let’s do Waffle House. I could use a slice of chocolate pie.”

  “Sounds good to me!” He grinned at her as he pulled up to a stop light in Roanoke. “Now, I want you to know that I know where to take a beautiful woman on a date, and Waffle House is not at the top of my list. So, you’ll have to let me make it up to you that our first date will be at a Waffle House.”

  She swallowed. “Our first date? Aren’t you getting a little bit ahead of yourself? I don’t believe I’ve agreed to anything but a dessert at Waffle House.”

  He shrugged. “You will. I’m going to marry you.” He wasn’t usually so over confident with women, but he believed there was someone for everyone. Someone everyone was destined to be with. He couldn’t have seen her and felt the way he felt if she wasn’t his destiny.

  Her jaw dropped. “Not overly sure of yourself are you?”

  “Not at all.” He turned to her and winked and she felt a shiver run through her at his naughty boy grin. “I just know what I want in life and I go after it. I thought I told you that earlier!”

  He pulled into the parking lot of the Waffle House and parked the truck. They got out together and he opened the door for her. She slid into a booth off to one side, ready to start some serious people watching. There wasn’t a big crowd this early in the evening, but she knew there would be after the bars closed, even on a Sunday night.

  She picked up the menu and started looking through everything on it, realizing she was hungry after all. “Is it okay if I order dinner? I ate five hours ago, and I think I’m hungry after all.”

  “You can order everything on the menu as far as I’m concerned.”

  She laughed. “I’m not quite that hungry.” She quickly scanned the menu and decided what she’d eat while he ignored his. “You just getting dessert?”

  “Yeah, but you get what you want. I just had dinner with my two best friends after the Super Bowl.”

  She grinned. “I spent the day with a group of friends watching the Super Bowl. I picked the winning team!”

  “I love that feeling. So did I.” He didn’t mention that because of the software his friend had developed which had revolutionized the sports world, he’d picked the winner in August, though.

  She leaned back in her seat. “What do you do?”

  He made a face, trying to figure out the best way to describe his job. “I guess you could say I’m an idea man and a salesman.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  He sighed, not wanting to talk too much about his job. “I started a business with my two best friends while I was in college to help sports coaches put together the best possible team. I came up with the concept and travel around talking to the different coaches selling them the software. My friend, Steven, writes the software, and my friend, Justin, manages the company.”

  “What’s the company called?” She liked sports, so maybe she’d heard of it.

  “Sports Prognosticators Incorporated. We call it SPI.”

  She blinked a few times. “I think I’ve heard of it.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a big company now.”

  The waitress came then and they placed their orders. When she was gone, Amber looked at him. “So, where do you live?”

  “Decatur.”

  “Really? Have you always live there?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I moved away for college, but moved back after. I have a house in the country. I’ve thought about ranching, but know nothing about it, and I make enough money from the business.” He picked up his water and took a sip. “Have you always lived in Corral City?”

  “Yeah, well, kind of. I lived there when I was little, but I went to a boarding school for high school. I was all set to go off to college when I found out my parents had died. There was no one to raise my little brother.”

  “So you did it.” It wasn’t a question. She had an air about her of doing whatever she needed to do to make things work.

  “What else could I do?” She took a drink of the tea in front of her. “He’s eight years younger than I am.”

  “I hope he appreciates the sacrifice you made.”

  She smiled. He didn’t know the half of it. “He appreciates the sacrifices he’s aware of. He’ll be coming home from college to run the family ranch in May.”

  “You’ve been running it?”

  “Before my parents died, I thought we had an unlimited supply of money. I rode horses and showed them, but more than anything, I was a snotty little rich girl.” She laughed softly. “I found out shortly after their death that my father had been gambling heavily for years. The ranch, which had been in our family for a hundred years, was mortgaged to the hilt and they were about to foreclose.”

  He blinked. “That’s rough.”

  “I sold everything I possibly could and let all of the servants go. The only person I kept on was Adam, the ranch’s foreman. He’d been there since before I was born, and agreed to a huge pay cut. He’s been running everything and doing the work of three men ever since.” She stretched her legs out to rest next to him on his seat in the booth across from her. “I started giving riding lessons to help pay down the mortgage. We’ll have it paid off in May, just in time for Bryan to take over.”

  “Bryan’s your brother?”

  She nodded. “He thinks I’m teaching snobby little rich girls to ride horses just because I like it. Well, I do like teaching, but not necessarily snobby little rich girls.” She shrugged. “It pays for the food and mortgage. Everything the ranch earns, we’ve been putting right back into it, so my brother will never know what happened with our parents. I don’t want him to know what Dad was really like.”

  Cody reached across the table and took her hand. “Marry me, and I’ll pay off the mortgag
e. And buy you a new truck. And a new horse. Do you need a new horse?”

  She laughed. “I’ll pay off the mortgage myself. I’m almost there. I’ll get the old truck fixed and we’ll keep it going for as long as it’ll go. I’ll never be financially dependent on a man again.”

  He looked at her for a moment to see how serious she was and sighed. It would be nice if his money impressed her, but instead it seemed to be a liability with Amber. He’d been used for his money by women so many times, it should have been a relief she wasn’t interested in his billions, but it wasn’t. He would do anything to impress this one. Anything.

  “I guess that means buying you a horse would do no good either?”

  She shook her head. “None at all.” The waitress brought their food then, and he took a forkful of his pie. Amber cut off a piece of waffle and popped it into her mouth. After swallowing, she sighed. “I love their waffles!”

  He took the change of subject in stride. “What’s your favorite type of food?”

  She seemed to consider that for a moment. “Probably Mexican, but I sure don’t turn down a good chicken fried steak when I can get it.”

  “Would you like to go out for dinner tomorrow? Mexican, chicken fried steak, whatever. I’ll let you pick.”

  She met his eyes. “I’ll be working until sundown tomorrow. I teach kids to ride, so my day doesn’t start until they’re home from school.” She didn’t add that she was always up early to take care of the horses. Grooming them and feeding them and mucking out the stalls fell to her as well. As soon as the mortgage was paid off, they’d be a ranch with enough income to hire some more hands, but for now, it was all on her.

  “Lunch then?”

  She shook her head. “I have other work to do in the mornings and afternoons.” It wasn’t a lie. She did paperwork for the ranch, and sometimes helped mend fences. Whatever needed to be done that required two pairs of hands was her job to help with.